In 1909, Baillie & Gifford created the Straits Mortgage and Trust Company Limited[4] to lend money to rubber planters in Malaya and Ceylon.

Baillie Gifford emerged from a further period of economic weakness in the UK during the 1970s with its position enhanced by growth in the amount of money it managed on behalf of clients.

Clients included five of the seven largest pension funds in the US and the firm had also attracted significant levels of business from Japan and Australia, as well as continuing to make inroads in other parts of the Far and Middle East.

However, in 2023, an open letter signed by over 50 authors threatened to boycott the 2024 Edinburgh International Book Festival because of the firm's investments in "corporations that profit from fossil fuels".

[20][21] In June, Baillie Gifford announced that it had ended all of its remaining sponsorship deals with literary festivals, funding that amounted to approximately £1M per year.